


Florence Nightingale

by Vexche



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Doctor/Patient, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-08 20:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6871927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vexche/pseuds/Vexche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Angela "Mercy" Ziegler finds herself unexpectedly visited by former patient and Overwatch member, Genji Shimada, whom she hasn't seen in years. The world is on the brink of a second crisis; as Winston calls for Overwatch's reassembly, Mercy must confront a dark secret from her past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nighthawk

She remembered when they brought her his body. Or what was left of it.

Overwatch recon had found him in a Hanamura alleyway, outside the Rikimaru Ramen shop. They estimated he had three hours left on local hospital life support. The Valkyrie suit could get her there in under an hour.

What had happened to him—she wasn't told at the time. But she could tell from the deep lacerations, all across his body and neck. Broad slashes from folded steel. Samurai swords. His face was mangled beyond recognition, but the perforated skin on his arms showed the watercolor inky tattoos of a crime gang. The Shimada Clan.

She was the one who saved him.

She rebuilt him.

–

2am. Doctor Angela Ziegler woke up as a cool touch brushed her cheek. At first, it felt like the wind, slipping through her window. Her eyes fluttered ajar to see a shadowy figure looming at the foot of her bed.

She screamed, instinctively reaching for her Caduceus blaster on her nightstand and fired it at her intruder.

He deflected the bullets into her bedside table with a lightning swift clatter of metal on metal.

"Careful where you point that pea shooter, Doctor Ziegler."

"Genji? Genji Shimada, is that—Oh goodness, what were you thinking?! Here, in the middle of the night?"

He sheathed his green blade, the moonlight shimmering across his silvery armor. "Perhaps I should have thought this through more carefully." A hint of embarrassment in his voice.

"How did you even know where to find—never mind." She turned on a light to better see him. His metal head pivoted pensively around the bedroom. "For the record, NO women actually appreciate when you break in their home and sneak up on them at night as a surprise. Only in bad movies."

"Noted."

She adjusted her nightshirt and beckoned him closer. It was still a bit uncanny to see him move, part-man, part-machine. He sat on the edge of the bed, his chrome armor sinking in her soft sheets.

"How—how have you been?" Her voice softened. "I… I thought we would never see each other again. After you… left."

"I received a message. From Winston."

"As did I."

"Do you believe him? About the Omnics?" he asked. "About Talon?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "To be honest, I've always had my misgivings about Overwatch and its relationship to the military industrial complex. Turns outs my doubts weren't unfounded. Like with you… they never told me the full extent of your mission, when they asked me to install cybernetic enhancements on you."

"Maybe they thought you would disapprove of me revenge killing my family."

"I most certainly would have. What good does that sort of violence do systemically?"

"It helped make Hanamura safer. Certainly made me feel better."

"Did it, really?"

Genji didn't respond.

"Look, I don't care much for the politics of it," he said. "I just wanted to find you before it happened. To see you. It seems you're doing well for yourself." He gestured at the apartment, with large bay windows that overlooked Lake Zurich, before turning back to her. "Your hair. It's different."

"People get older," she said. Her blonde locks had achieved a rather icy white tone as of late.

"I won't." He said resolutely. "Do you remember that day? The day you saved my life?"

"Of course."

"The second time?"

She remembered everything.

–

Early in one of his clandestine missions, Genji had suffered a bit of a mishap while breaking up the Shimada clan's trafficking cartels. Angela had been in Tokyo at the time giving a conference on the innovations of cybernetics and applied nanobiology when Overwatch alerted her to the emergency.

Her locator sent her to a love motel on the outskirts of Hanamura. His room was at the top, and Genji lay on the floor, blood trickling through the metal plates in his body.

"Someone call a doctor?" she said, descending down onto the balcony. "What sort of mission takes you here?"

"Confidential, Miss Ziegler," Genji grunted. "Although I can assure you it's business first, pleasure second." He coughed and a few specks of blood spattered onto the ground.

"I see that smirk under your mask, you're not fooling me. Let's get you patched up." She drew her Caduceus staff and slowly applied the nanotechnology particle beam to him, monitoring his vitals. His heart rate stabilized.

"You would think with the budgets this organization has they'd put me up in better accommodations," Genji said. The room was adorned with gaudy plush and smelled of cigar smoke.

"Not everyone grew up accustomed to a lifestyle of mob money. At least be glad you have access to the top medical technology in the world. You wouldn't be here without it."

"Thank you for the reminder, Miss Ziegler. How could I possibly forget?" he spat. She felt his heart-rate tick.

"That's Doctor Ziegler to you."

"You know, Doctor," he grabbed her arm, "It's easy for you to say. You can take off that guardian angel suit anytime. I bet you could even do it right now."

"Simmer down, playboy," she said, gently but firmly prying his titanium digits off her forearm and placing them by his side.

"But I can never take this off." He rattled his metallic limbs and appraised her. "You know, back in my youth, I'd have a hundred women like you at my feet. Pretty, blond."

"There are no other women like me."

–

"That was... ballsier that usual for me," Angela admitted, thinking back about what she said to him.

"But it is true," Genji said. "I was too young to appreciate it at the time. There is no one quite like you, Doctor Ziegler." He reached out to touch her hand. His limbs were always cold and made her shiver.

"Where did you go?" she whispered. "All these years..."

"You have to understand," he said, "after I sought my revenge on my family, after all the bloodshed... I thought all that hatred would have burned itself out. Instead, it all turned inward. I was disgusted at what I had become—these cold, mechanical parts of me. I lost everything that made me a man—my honor, my brother, my body—so I ran away as far as I could. I found myself in Nepal, where I met Tekhartha Zenyatta."

"Tekhartha... sounds familiar. Like Mondatta? The omnic monk who was just assassinated in London?"

"From the Shambali, yes. But Zenyatta disagreed with Mondatta's methods. Zen felt that true harmony between humans and omnics would come from empathy and interpersonal interaction, not dogmatic teaching. He showed me how to reconcile the parts of me that were man and machine."

"I'm glad to hear it," she said, squeezing his hand.

"Sometimes, late at night, I have moments where I still feel a pang of repulsion for what I've become. But Zen always reminded me that I am here because of you. You saved me. And if I feel what I do for you, I cannot hate this part of myself."

"Genji..." She touched his cheek.

"Mercy."

"No one's called me that in years."

She fell into his embrace. Her warmth spread across the cool plates of his chest, and she could hear the low whirring purr of the machinery that kept his body alive. For a moment they stayed there, breathing syncing up, his helmet resting on her unkempt hair.

"You know..." she whispered, pulling back a little, "You are... still one of the most impressive patients and success stories I've had in my career."

"Is that all I am to you?" He retreated, slightly hurt.

"I don't know if we could be anything else."

"You saved my life."

"Savior adoration is a common symptom among those in the battlefield. It's not unusual to fall in love with your nurse."

"Who said I was in love?" he muttered. His armor seemed to harden.

"I'm sorry, Genji, I didn't mean—"

"I understand."

"Look, I haven't seen you or anyone from those days in ages. It's not like I haven't been busy, but... it's been tough. I almost closed myself off to everyone after what happened at headquarters. Morrison's gone. Reyes is gone. I thought I had put that part of me behind me. I need some time to sort out how I even feel, now that we're being called back." She stood up. Genji sensed it and moves toward the balcony.

"Well, if what the ape says is true, then we will see more of each other soon."

"Promise not to sneak up on me." She opened the sliding door for him.

"I'll try not to. But if we face Talon and they are as bad as they sound, it may be that we shall see each other again in death."

"I hope not."

"What was that thing you always said?" He said, turning back to her as he perched on the edge of the balcony railing with the grace of a cat.

"Heroes never die." She kissed him on the cheek.

"Right."

He slipped away into the night.

To be continued


	2. Dark Phoenix

"I can't stay too long. This line might be bugged."

"Wouldn't you know if it were bugged? You are one of the most brilliant minds I've ever known, across any species, Winston."

"Angela, please." Winston's gruff voice came over her videocom, the same urgency as it had when she received his first message titled, OW: RECALL. "It's not the UN or Interpol I'm worried about. I can't explain everything now but my systems were compromised and I don't know how much I secured in time... you need to get yourself and any of the others somewhere safe... one of the old watchpoints. I've set up in Gibraltar."

"How am I supposed to know where the others are? I haven't seen anyone in years."

"Reinhardt is gallivanting around north in the suit, last I checked. Tor is still somewhere in the Nordic Alliance."

"He doesn't want anything to do with weapons and machinery anymore, trust me."

"What does the guy do all day, then?"

"Last I heard, he took up gardening." Angela sighed. "Winston, it's nice to hear from you, but I don't know if I can do this again. I was... relieved, almost, when the Petras Act passed and Overwatch was shutdown. I know that it was hard on you, most of all—"

"—You have no idea," he growled. "You and Lena and everyone else managed to find a way back into the world. There's no real reintegration program for highly intelligent apes."

"I'm sorry," she said.

"It's not your fault," Winston replied.

"I wish I could believe that." If only he knew.

"I hope I'll see you soon, Mercy. I may have solved chronal dissociation, but I can't patch myself up to save my life."

"I'll always be there if you need me, dear."

They hung up. Angela stared at her feet where an open briefcase laid, day clothes halfheartedly tossed inside, while the Valkyrie suit—her pride, her uniform—sat immaculate in its polycarbonate case, Caduceus staff folded next to it.

"This is absurd," she told herself. How exactly was she planning to travel across international borders with this thing? Was she going to take the suit carry-on? Put it under her seat? She could tell them she was on a medical mission—the Petras Act was never really specific on what activities she was not allowed to do as a medic—but the more she thought about it, the more ludicrous the prospect sounded.

She rummaged through her bottom dresser drawer, where she kept most of the old things from those days. A greeting card she and Torbjörn had made for Halloween. Oktoberfest pictures with Reinhardt. And, crumpled up and still stained with brownish dried blood, a photo of two brothers.

She never told Genji she had collected it off his person the night she found him. She should have returned it with the rest of his effects, but the Genji that rose from his death wanted nothing to do with his former life.

She examined it again. On the left, long-haired but clean-shaven, arms folded in a haughty stance of indifference, was Hanzo Shimada, whom she heard had gone missing after his altercation with his brother. On the right, spiked hair bleached a silly greenish color, was young Genji. His mischievous smirk conveyed all the air of the hotshot that he was, everything that got him in trouble with his family in the first place.

Angela and Winston had always had a playful rivalry over their respective scientific and medical achievements. Lena, codename Tracer, was Winston's. Genji was hers. She knew Lena harbored a great deal of affection for Winston for saving her life. It seemed Genji felt the same toward her, if not more so, based on his brief visit the other night.

She always considered herself professional. Even at the height of the allegations toward Overwatch she had done her best to be impartial, to follow her oath and do no harm. Keeping a distance from her patients was part of that. If what she was about to do—heed Winston's call—was illegal, beyond the bounds of her profession and her mission, then what extra harm was there in closing that distance?

A flickering shadow passed in the corner of her eye outside the window. She turned to see something in the rustling leaves of the tree near her apartment.

"You again?" she whispered. She quickly checked herself in the dresser mirror, smoothing her tousled blonde hair and fixing her blouse.

Footsteps in the hallway outside her door.

"You're going to have to be a bit more sneaky than that, dear," she said playfully, opening the door.

A black claw seized her throat.

She slammed into the wall. He materialized from the shadows, his breath chilling her blood as he hissed in her ear—

"Whatsss up… doc."

With one hand he tossed her across the room as she careened into her dresser. He pulled out a pair of shotguns, aimed at her head. She leaped toward the bed as his bullets showered the drawers, sending wood chips flying.

She drew her blaster. Fired back. He didn't flinch. It was as if the shots had gone right through him.

"Heh heh." His low chuckle echoed behind his white skull mask. The voice, disembodied and disfigured, sounded strangely familiar.

"What do you want? Please, don't—" she pleaded.

He emptied several more rounds in her direction as she rolled away. She could hear his clips were empty as he tossed his guns aside.

"I want you to see what you've done…" His hands were around her again. She struggled, but his grip—like death—overwhelmed her, his body, weightless yet overpowering, his voice filling her with terror, memory, and guilt—

"What… happened…" she couldn't breathe.

"You. Tell. Me."

She could hear the emergency system ringing as she began to lose oxygen to her brain. I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…

Suddenly, she could breathe again. A flash of silver and steel as the dark figure flew back.

Genji braced his stance, drawing his sword. His opponent drew a new pair of guns, as if from the ether. But every bullet shot Genji deflected back, until finally the ghostly man grunted, growled, and dropped his weapons again.

"Next time." Looking at her— "Don't forget. You're responsible for this."

He evaporated in a cloud of black smoke.

"Doctor Ziegler— are you all right?" Genji dashed toward her as she collapsed onto the floor.

"Give me a second…" she heaved. Genji looked frantically around the room, lunged for her Caduceus staff, and raced back to her.

"I don't know how to use this," he said.

"It's fine," she breathed. "Just a few more seconds…" she could feel herself coming back from the brink.

"I always thought it was your suit that kept you alive," Genji whispered.

"I experimented long ago with nanocells in my own bloodstream," she said, still struggling to get up. "It won't save me from a direct firefight but it does help keep me stabilized. Are you hurt?"

"Don't worry about me, Doctor Ziegler," he said, almost laughing, as he knelt down beside her. "It is you who needs help today." She wrapped her arms around him as he lifted her up and set her down on the mattress. She could feel him shift his weight to not crush her as he sank beside her.

"Were you monitoring me? Is that how you…"

"Guilty," he said. "I probably shouldn't have, but I feel better about doing so now. Who was he? That man. Or demon. What did he mean?"

"I don't know." That was a lie. She crawled to lay her head in his metallic lap. For a moment she could feel his cybernetic joints stiffen, then relax as she reached for his hand.

"It seems Winston was right. There is someone after us," Genji said. "We must move quickly. I can jump us on a high speed train to Monaco and a sonic airship to Gibraltar—"

"Genji." She looked up.

"Yes, Doctor Ziegler?"

"It's Angela."

His head turned toward her for a moment, pausing.

"Angela… Mercy. Angel of Mercy. Oh. I understand now."

They looked at each other in silence. He leaned his head into hers, the cool metal helmet pressing on her sweat-drenched forehead. She breathed deeply. Somewhere beneath the metallic odor she could swear was the hint of his scent, the base note of musky perfume of the young man in the photo. The purr of his electronic heartbeat quickened as her breath fogged his visor.

"Genji, did you mean what you said the other night, about being whole? About… finding peace with who you've become?"

"Of course."

"You'll never resent that part of yourself… or me?"

"How could I? Why would you ask a question like that?" he seemed almost impatient.

"Oh...just nerves and shock," she mumbled. "Symptomatic of that much adrenaline going through you." She got up and shook herself off. "So, right, where were we? I think I'll wear my suit and follow you."

"What about your things?" he gestured toward the suitcase.

"If we're hitchhiking our way to Gibraltar, I'll need to fly light—and under the radar."

_To be continued_


	3. Albatross

"Do you ever think about him?"

"Who?"

"Your brother."

"Is now really the time?" Genji shouted, his words whipped from his mouth by the wind. Angela clung to his back as his mechanical claws latched to the side of the high-speed bullet train. Like a pair of insects in the slipstream, they slowly crawled until they made it into the crevice between two train cars.

"I think this one's empty," he said, cutting a clean hole in the glass of one cabin window with his shuriken talons and peering inside.

"Couldn't we have just bought tickets?" she huffed as they climbed into the dark, private compartment.

"I thought you agreed we wanted to be discreet."

"That was before I realized we'd be traveling at 500 kilometers per hour," she said. "But you're almost certainly right that we'd both have international transport warnings in our biometrics to monitor our travels. Best not leave a trail."

She locked the door and closed the blinds on the window. They sat in the dark, recovering from the feeling of having all air ripped away from your lungs in the gale-force gust of the train.

The plan was to transfer to a cargo airship at the Port of Monaco to fly across the sea and drop off in Gibraltar. Non-passenger flight vessels meant they could minimize the chance of being spotted.

Angela watched as Genji pulled out a tiny tube of oil, nursing his metal joints. She observed as he painstakingly lubricated each hinge and plate, tuning every sensor, and wiping debris from his helmet.

"I think it's time you got an upgrade," she said. "Your hardware is almost a generation out of date."

"Would you do that for me?" he asked.

"I think between Winston and I, we can manage," she said.

"It'd be an honor to have you work on me again," he said. She could feel her cheeks turning pink.

"So…do you think about him?" she asked again. "Hanzo? About the past?'

Genji sighed. "For some time, it was all that I could think about… the anger consumed me. But after meeting Zen and the Shambali, I don't think about it so destructively anymore. I want to forgive him, as Zenyatta taught me to forgive myself."

"It sounds like you really liked Zenyatta," Angela said sympathetically.

"That doesn't begin to describe it," Genji insisted. "He's unbelievable. You think he's so fragile, slow, but his power—Zen could bring down a man like Reinhardt in seconds. If he were with us, we'd be unstoppable. I haven't heard from him since Mondatta's death, it has really affected him. I hope he's—" he faltered, turning away shyly. If it were possible for a cyborg to blush, then Angela was seeing it now.

"I'm not used to seeing you so expressive," she said. "In fact, I'm still not used to seeing you at all."

"You must have missed me." They leaned in closer to each other in the dark.

She smiled quietly and whispered in his ear, "There are very few things I miss from those days. I don't miss the hours. I don't miss the missions—the fighting, the meetings, and especially not the paperwork. But I do miss the people. Lena, Winston, Reinhardt, you…"

"Not Torbjörn, that man was always drunk. And suspicious of me," Genji said.

"Tor just didn't trust anything that resembled artificial intelligence," Angela explained. "I think he understood that I cybertized you to save your life."

"Well, the little man was always fond of you," Genji murmured. "In fact, I could tell many of the team were. Morrison, especially."

"Please, Morrison only cared about justice and the Overwatch brand." She remembered Jack Morrison, with his boyish blond hair and Midwest American accent, always called her "doll," which she despised and insisted that he address her as Doctor Ziegler. He'd point out that Lena always called her "love," which Angela didn't seem to mind at all.

"Then there was Mister Jesse. I never saw much of him. He and Reyes were always off on their Blackwatch missions…"

"Jesse McCree was an incorrigible flirt. But he was always after Ana Amari, trying to impress her with deadeye pistol shots from across the room, even though he knew she could have sniped that shot from across a stadium without a scope." Angela laughed. "Gosh, this brings back memories."

She recalled those nights at the old watchpoint with Lena and Ana, the three women of the team, sharing stories like girls at a sleepover. Lena blinked non-stop around the room when she heard her best gal Mercy had won a Nobel Prize in Medicine ("They still give those out?! Ace!") and Ana would bring her older daughter Fareeha to the office when they were off duty. The girl, not much younger than Angela at the time, would inevitably get into the rocket supply and Winston would have to do damage control.

As they reminisced, Angela found herself fiddling absentmindedly with the plates on Genji's chest.

"You know I cannot feel what you're doing," Genji said. "Or rather, my sensors can detect pressure and threat, but not soft touch…"

"Maybe that was an oversight on my part."

"Yes. What if a gentle assassin were to come and seduce me…" a hint of his old playboy drawl. "I'd be powerless."

"Genji… may I?" she placed both her hands on the side of his face.

"Careful."

She reached around to press at the back of his neck. The green visor slid away and the mask lowered to reveal his brown eyes, reddened, the skin around his face deeply scarred. He closed his eyes instinctively as she leaned in and—knowing full well this wasn't within her role as a medic—softly kissed his eyelids, one after the other.

He gasped and shuddered.

"The sensation," he whispered, "is more intense than I remembered. Painful even."

"I'm sorry, I'll stop."

"Don't."

He wrapped his mechanical arms around her waist and pressed himself against her. They sat entwined in the darkness. It was like every little touch sent a wave of electricity through him, causing him to buck and squeeze her closer. It had been a long time, it seemed, for both of them.

"Maybe we shouldn't," she whispered in his ear. "We might miss our stop."

"Why shouldn't we just stay here… forever?"

"How could we do that?" she laughed softly. "We'd need to eat… I'm starving already. Aren't you?"

"I have not eaten in years. You installed the caloric transmitter implant in me."

"Oh. Right." She giggled.

"I'm feeling hunger of a different sort right now."

"Goodness, Genji. What will the others say when we see them?"

"The rest of the team doesn't need to know. Half of them are dead anyway."

At this, her smile faded. The small knot of dread in her stomach, which she had been attempting to push down the entire evening, now rose into her throat. Half of them are dead… She moved away from him.

Genji, sensing that he had said something wrong, let her retreat into the corner. "Mercy," he said quietly, "do you know what exactly happened in the Swiss headquarters?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," Angela said, looking away. Genji stared at her, the green glow of his visor pulsing in the darkness.

The memory burned painfully in her head. She could see the whole place in flames—Ana's dying screams as she tried to stop them, Morrison's body crumbling under the falling rubble, and Reyes…

"It seems like I'm not the only one who needs to process the past."

"I don't know…" she shook her head. "I really don't know the details. All I know is that when I got there late… there was nothing I could do. I did everything I knew that would work and things I hadn't even tried before. But I failed…"

"It sounds like you did your best." Genji consoled her. "May their souls rest in peace."

"I think this is our stop." Angela got up, still avoiding eye contact.

They spent the flight in the cargo hold of the airship not talking, sitting apart, Genji on the lookout, Angela staring off into the distance, attempting to keep the dreaded memory of that night that Overwatch fell out of her mind.

When they passed over Gibraltar, they jumped from the sky deck and plummeted toward the old watchpoint. Angela's guardian angel suit let them descend gracefully onto the lookout of the decrepit tower.

The place still seemed abandoned. A sign on the broken fence said "Closed by Government Mandate." Angela peered in the darkened window, while Genji found a locked door that he forced open.

They entered into the dark.

"Hello? Anyone here?" Angela called out. "Winston? Lena?'

"Presence detected." A bodiless voice rang out. Floodlights drowned out her vision until the voice—soft, female, friendly—said, "Welcome back, Dr. Angela Ziegler, codename Mercy. And you too, Genji Shimada." Her eyes adjusted and she saw Genji withdraw the shuriken from his knuckles.

A bank of computers in front of them sat illuminated with the glowing words "ATHENA" on one screen. "Winston and codename Tracer are not here at the moment. They told me to leave you a note and for you to get situated. I sense you are hungry. There are snacks in the fridge—unfortunately mostly peanut butter and bananas, as you might expect."

"Athena, it's good to see you," Angela smiled sitting down in front of the computers.

"It is good to have your presence as well," Athena's voice said. "Would you like me to play you the note now?"

"Sure."

"Dear Mercy and Genji, we got intel into a planned heist in Numbani around the Doomfist exhibit. Hopefully back shortly. Hopefully successfully. Love, Winston and Tracer."

"When did they leave?" Genji asked, approaching cautiously.

"Fifteen hours ago," Athena replied. "In fact…"

She popped open an international newsfeed on a different monitor. Genji moved closer as he and Angela watched the stream reel. The headline "OVERWATCH EXHIBIT CRASHED BY ROGUE AGENTS"—showed footage of Winston plummeting from the glass ceiling as a dark woman shot at him with a sniper rifle. Angela saw Tracer blink across the screen, barely detectable by the camera's frame rate, as the woman grappling hooked away from her pulse pistols, and then—

"Hold on," Genji said, leaning closer. "Is that—"

A dark hooded figure materialized in the corner behind Winston. His black shotguns emptied themselves into their friend's armor, sending Winston into a primal rage.

"That man!" Genji shouted. "He's the one who attacked us the other night!"

"I can run a biometric scan," Athena said, "but I do not yet know who he is."

I do, Angela thought.

To Be Continued


	4. Sparrow

Sleep came easy for her.

He had tried for years to sleep, but his body simply would not allow it. He lay next to her. Watched her chest move slowly up and down under the thin blanket. Attempted to mimic her breathing. But the closest he came was a sort of prone meditation, a lucid hibernation, the neural transmitters in his helmet pulsing to mimic the rapid eye movement and deep sleep wave effects on his cybernetic brain but stirring at the slightest noise or alert in the room.

It was only with Zenyatta that he had learned how to dream. Deep in the temple of the Shambali, surrounded by the hum of the other omnic monks, Zenyatta had touched Genji's temples with his spindly fingers and showed him how to gaze into the Iris.

In the trance, Genji saw himself as a young man. Sitting in the VIP service section of some dimly lit nightclub in Tokyo in an unbuttoned suit, he drank Yamazaki straight from the bottle. A naked woman crawled on her knees toward him on the plush sofa. She resembled Angela—in his dreams she always was—long blonde-white hair falling in messy tendrils over her cheeks, shoulders, breasts. Her eyes closed and mouth slightly parted in a dreamy half-smile, she reached out to place one hand on his chest. Then—slipping through his skin like a pool of water—she seized his beating heart.

He reeled, trying to break the vision, but Zen kept him there as Genji's body dissolved—first tattooed skin, then muscle, ribcage, lungs—until all that was left was the thumping mass of his heart in her hand. He rematerialized one metal plate after another into his new form, as her angelic wings sparkled and she embraced him, her softness as real as if she were truly there in front of him. The aura of Zenyatta's glow filled him with such warmth that he could not hold onto the fear—the pain, anger, resentment, vengeance—everything melted away.

Genji never told anyone, but his inner peace with his dualistic existence was thanks to his love for the two of them. A doctor who saved his life. A robot who saved his soul.

Now he lay next to Angela, who curled up on his blanketed chest and snored lightly, wondering where his teacher was. After hearing the tragic news of Mondatta's death by the hands of a mysterious assassin, Zen had retreated from the Shambali temple and disappeared. Last Genji had heard—Zen didn't really express sadness when mourning— the monk was going to London. He didn't seem the type to seek revenge either. But Genji was always surprised by his sensei.

The next morning, as she had promised, Angela set up Athena to perform some hardware upgrades on his armor.

"We are unfortunately low on raw materials," Athena mentioned as Genji walked in, situating himself on the operating table. "Our hardware resources haven't been replenished since we were defunded. Winston has been hijacking small shipments for his tinkering experiments, but if we're not careful, we'll be tracked."

"I'll work with what we've got," Angela said, slipping on a pair of blue gloves.

"I hope you two had a good night's rest together," Athena said nonchalantly. Angela blushed but Genji knew it was no use keeping secrets. Athena always knew everything. She probably even detected the sleepy whispered words of affectionate Japanese that Angela had mumbled in his ear as she woke up that morning.

"You know," Genji admitted as he laid down on the table, "I used to be a little too reckless on missions back in the day, in hopes that Dr. Angela Ziegler would come to my rescue."

"Don't think I never noticed," Angela muttered. "Half my calls were for you getting yourself in the line of fire. I was supposed to be looking after Reinhardt—"

"—Ah, come on, he could always take care of himself—"

"Always at the most inopportune times, too," she sighed.

"Don't pretend you didn't like seeing me."

"I can tell you were the little brother, constantly vying for attention," she teased. "Anyways, where were we?" She pulled up his scans on Athena's projectors. "I'll need you cognizant for some of these to give me neural feedback. But some will require me to put you to sleep."

"That would be an enviable state," Genji said. "Sleep."

"I was thinking Chrome plates for the chest armor," she said, putting on a pair of spectacles to examine the details of her operating protocol. She looked especially cute in glasses. "Perhaps Carbon Fibre if we can spring it."

"Any other upgrades you're planning? Perhaps some quality of life adjustments?"

"What do you have in mind?" Angela asked.

"Basic human functions. The everyday elements of life, you know: sleeping, eating, shitting—"

"Cybertization is supposed to help one transcend those mundane routines of man's existence."

"Some routines are quite enjoyable for men, as I recall."

Her eyes flickered toward his groin and she raised her eyebrows. "My statement still stands. Hush." She strapped down his limbs and the table whirred and sank lower to form a shallow tank. Cybernetic gel began filling the chamber, as Angela approached with a large drill needle.

"This might sting," she said, aiming for the base of his neck.

When he awoke, Angela had changed out of her operating gloves and was making tea on the kitchen counter in the other room. He blinked and strained his eyes against the bright overhead lamp, just able to make out her willowy silhouette in long t-shirt and shorts.

He pulled himself upright on the table. Something was… different. The bottom of his thighs and legs felt cool against the titanium operating bed. He flexed his arms in their plates and sensed a slight breeze playing gently across the surface. He touched his helmeted face and the sharp cold of his fingers stung his metal cheeks.

"So, I've installed some secondary sensory receptor technology in your armor, as per your feedback," Angela said, coming back into the room with a hot mug in one hand and a small silver remote in the other. "It seemed safer to have the switch off your person in combat, as this is largely a, um, quality of life setting, as you called it."

"I advised her against it, if it makes a difference," Athena interrupted from the speakers above.

"Athena, could you give us a moment?" Angela muttered. "Go check on Lena? They just returned an hour ago." Athena didn't respond, presumably assenting.

"So… this thing," Genji pointed at the silver remote in her hand, "can control if I can feel?"

"Precisely," Angela replied, "I would advise keeping it in a safe place, maybe in Athena's vault—"

"I can think of no better place than with you," he said, grasping his hand around hers and the small rectangular remote. She set the mug down on the table and Genji could truly feel the tea's steam wafting toward him as she leaned in.

"How does it feel?" she pressed her hand on his face.

"Like I dreamed," Genji whispered. He leaned in and she kissed him, her soft lips pressing against his helmet. It was the most intense thing—the sensation traveled all the way from his face to his chest, causing his heart to constrict as if her lips too had caressed it.

"I didn't know you could dream," she whispered back. Everything felt heightened, her breath on his mouth, her heartbeat on his chest.

"Zen taught me."

"He must care deeply for you."

"He doesn't really experience human emotions like affection. But I love him all the same—" Genji faltered. It was the first time he had used that word, "love," to anyone in a long time. Perhaps the last person he truly loved was his brother. Angela smiled, her blue eyes filled with a level of empathy and understanding that almost made his heart burst.

"I know the sentiment," she said.

"You mean…" Genji said, pulling away briefly. "You love—"

"I love everyone here," Angela clarified. There was a blink of light in the hallway.

"What's that? Oh, I love you, too, darling!" Lena burst in to the room and threw herself at Angela. "Terribly sorry to interrupt love, but I missed you both so much!" She kissed Angela twice on each cheek then dashed over to squeeze Genji around the waist.

"Ow!" he cried out—the sensory overload as Lena bounced around him was almost unbearable—until Angela hastily flipped the switch on the remote. He felt himself shrinking behind his armor once again, his sensors deadened.

"It's been a nasty day," Lena gushed rapidly, having not aged at all since he last saw her, unsurprising given her condition, "Talon's got some new agents. I've been tracking the sniper Widowmaker around all London since she took out Mondatta—"

"Mondatta—" Genji's mind raced back to Zen.

"—And Winston's got word of this new guy, Reaper's his name, who is definitely on some kinda mission to take Doomfist's gauntlet and attack the remaining Overwatch agents. We've got Reinhardt on his way from Greenland and still trying to get Torb's over—"

"Lena, slow down," Angela said. Their friend stopped blinking around and sat down, cross-legged, on the table. Lena was wearing her chronal accelerator over a new fitted body suit and smiling behind a rather scratched visor. "It's so good to see you, my dear."

"It's been too long," Lena squealed. "Gosh, it'll be like the old days—well, almost, okay, not really but—we're going to need more recruits if we're planning to take these blokes on. We'll need someone to do what Ana did, what Morrison did…"

"I think I might know," Genji interrupted. "I know who could help us." As he rose to find Winston, he looked back at Angela, currently caught in an embrace with Lena. His eyes met hers again, and he sensed it would be a long time before they could share another moment together now that they were back on base with everyone else.

When he made it down the hallway, he heard a voice say, "It is ill-advised to pursue what you desire."

Athena again.

"I don't know what you are talking about," Genji muttered.

"While it can be synergistic to have emotional attachments to teammates to foster solidarity and cooperation, your sentiments can cloud your judgment when it comes to making strategic decisions in the moment."

"You sound like Zenyatta," Genji said. "Why do you A.I. have to be so… logical all the time?"

"It is part of our nature. We can see what is optimal for everyone and seek to encourage that behavior." Athena replied. "I have said the same to her. She will not listen. I hoped I could at least convince you. Stop this. It is dangerous."

"I know. And suboptimal. And irrational."

"Correct. And possibly destructive."

"I guess this means I'm still human," Genji said with a resigned smile. He kept walking.

"Are you planning to suggest to Winston recruiting your mentor, Zenyatta? I've tracked his location to King's Row," Athena called after him.

"Yes, and one more."

"Who might that be?"

"My brother."

To be continued

**Author's Note:**

> This work is a crosspost with my ff.net account. More chapters to come!


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